A Very Techy Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year. I always look forward to getting together with the family and celebrating over a great meal. I'm blessed with a family that is pretty close and actually enjoys each other's company.

Sure, I'm a bit idealistic when it comes to ThanksgivingI grew up in the era of Norman Rockwell. The artist's famous Thanksgiving painting from his Four Freedom series features a happily family gathered around a large table to celebrate the holiday. I imagine that this image is stamped into the memories of much of my generation. While it's perhaps unrealistic these days, it brings with it a wave of nostalgia from my past. The painting captures many elements of the Thanksgivings of my youth.

This year, however, my Thanksgiving dinner was nothing like that painting. The meal had a high-tech twist that made the whole event more surrealistic than idealistic. To be fair, things started out fairly traditionally. We all sat down around a large table and gave thanks for the bounty before us, reflecting on all of the things we are thankful for. Then we ate and discussed our lives. Once the main course was finished, however, we had a lull before dessert. Nearly all of the 10 teenagers at the table pulled out their smartphones and began texting, checking e-mail, and playing mobile apps. The younger kids pulled out Gameboys and quickly became engrossed in some sort of racing game.

Most of the texting was directed at friends who weren't present, though some of the teenagers were actually texting family members sitting at the table with them. When I asked the kids why they didn't just talk to each other directly, they looked at me like I was from another planet. They then explained that they were so used to this manner of communication that texting was actually easier than talkingeven in such close quarters.

Then, just before dessert was served, a couple who had come to the dinner with us pulled out a laptop and started a Skype conversation with their children who attended college in Oklahoma. Within minutes, the two girls in Oklahoma were on screen, chatting with everyone around the table, and virtually taking part in the dessert course. As the evening wound down, four of the adults around our table pulled out laptops to begin searching for Black Friday deals and mapping out their shopping strategies.

I work in the tech industry, so none of this should have come as a shock. But for some reason, having all of this technology around the Thanksgiving table was a bit unsettlingthat is, until I absent-mindedly pulled out my iPhone to text my son at the other end of the table a reminder about a meeting he and I had the following Monday.

Besides me, my son, and my sister, who is a director of event management at Cisco, nobody at the Thanksgiving feast was part of the tech industry. Still, laptops, smartphones, and even handheld gaming systems were all present as silent guests eagerly awaiting their chance to join the conversation.

I mentioned this phenomenon to some friends, and they reported similar experiences at their own dinners, though none of the examples were quite as extreme as my own. Many of them watched as fellow guests showed off newly purchased phones and netbook and newly downloaded apps and games.

Of course I'm reporting all of this from the Silicon Valley, the center of the tech world, so encountering highly tech literate people is certainly not unusual. However, I suspect that smartphones have made their way into a lot of family feasts across the US, especially where there are teenagers present. The PC and gaming consoles seem to have replaced Parcheesi, Clue, and Monopoly board games that have long been fixtures of family get-togethers.

The invasion of such technologies may be uncomfortable to an older generation. They may well yearn for the days when long, heartfelt conversations were the norm. Even the art of letter writing has gone the way of the dinosaur, as e-mail and texting have truncated our communication. Yet, to a younger generation, this new communication is the norm. They've most likely never taken out a pen and paper to write a snail mail letter. And while they may have some level of familiarity with traditional board games, most of their entertainment comes from consoles and cellphones.

I have experienced both extremes. When I was in college, snail mail and landlines were the only way I could communicate with friends and family. Long conversations with friends and family were highly cherished. Thanksgiving was Rockwellian, with all the trimmings and simple settings. But as much I long for those simple days, the reality is that they are a thing of the past for meand everyone else.

Today we have instant access to information, communication, and entertainment anytime, practically anywhere we go. These technologies make us more productive at home, work, and even in our play. Our lives now move faster and have higher demands. Technology makes it possible to manage these fast-paced lifestyles. And for that, I am thankful.

Tim Bajarin is one of the leading analysts working in the technology industry today. He is president of Creative Strategies (www.creativestrategies.com), a research company that produces strategy research reports for 50 to 60 companies annuallya roster that includes semiconductor and PC companies, as well as those in telecommunications, consumer electronics, and media. Customers have included AMD, Apple, Dell, HP, Intel, and Microsoft, among many others. You can e-mail him directly attim@creativestrategies.com.

Tim Bajarin is recognized as one of the leading industry consultants, analysts, and futurists covering the field of personal computers and consumer technology. Mr. Bajarin has been with Creative Strategies since 1981 and has served as a consultant to most of the leading hardware and software vendors in the industry including IBM, Apple, Xerox, Compaq, Dell, AT&T, Microsoft, Polaroid, Lotus, Epson, Toshiba, and numerous others. Mr. Bajarin is known as a concise, futuristic analyst, credited with predicting the desktop publishing revolution three years before it...
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